It is generally acknowledged in literature that the introduction of new technology requires a period of adjustment during which the new application must first be assimilated before it can maximize its potential. This is often the case with respect to the use of different and increasingly complex applications in education, which cause frustration for many new users. For this reason, searching for information in a digital environment requires users to learn the intricacies of the information systems being used.
Jenkins, Corritore and Wiedenbeck (2003:65) state that the web also poses many challenges to users who search for and evaluate web-based information. Chau (1999:n.p)
observes: “The uncertainties of the Internet challenge the modern workplace but also promise unexpected opportunities.” According to Chau in Chau (1999:n.p), “The World Wide Web (WWW) is one of the many types of intelligence that requires human mastery due to its decentralized information arrays and the immense variety of materials available.” The consistent theme shared by these authors is that despite the hype surrounding the web and its numerous benefits, there are in fact many challenges that users face when looking for information.
Some of the challenges that students and staff face when they are searching for information, as identified by Lallimo, Lakkala and Paavola (2004:4), are technical illiteracy and/or information illiteracy (mostly browser-related navigation in the hypertext jungle); poorly developed search strategies; misinterpretation of information; and the poor utilization of information.
According to Savolainen (2001:211), the networked information environment, epitomized by the Internet, places new demands on people’s competencies in everyday information seeking processes. The range of sources and their inherent complexity continues to expand significantly, particularly on the web today. Consequently, information seeking has also become considerably complex, meaning that novice searchers (e.g. tertiary students) may lack the capacity to make good judgments on the web - a vast and often unregulated information medium. Cutrell and Guan (2007:1) observe: “As an increasingly large fraction of human knowledge migrates to the World Wide Web and other information systems, finding useful information is simultaneously more important and much more difficult.”
In its objectives, the SIGIR WISI (Web Information-Seeking and Interaction) Workshop (2007:n.p) alluded to the fact that people engaging with this rich network of information often need to interact with different technologies, interfaces, and information providers in the course of a single search task. SIGIR WISI echoed that the systems may offer different interaction accordances and require users to adapt their information-seeking strategies. Not only is this challenging to users, but it also presents challenges for the
designers of interactive systems who need to make their own systems useful and usable to broad user groups. It is noted that the web’s growing support for information seeking, creation, and use in a wide variety of applications in higher education highlights the need for efficient and effective information seeking skills. Chau (1999:n.p) points out that the web is recognized as a system that provides opportunities for publishing and disseminating information globally. However, the web's unstructured environment also places obstacles in the way of users' access to relevant information.
Kuhlthau (1999:1) states that people who use a variety of information sources to learn about a particular subject, complex problem, or extensive issue, often have difficulty in the early stages of information seeking. This situation, while it is particularly noticeable with students who have been assigned a research paper, does not apply to students alone.
Kuhlthau reiterates that advances in information systems that open access to a vast array of resources have in many cases not eased the user’s dilemma, but rather intensified the general sense of confusion and uncertainty. New information systems may deepen the problem by overwhelming the user with everything at once, rather than offering a few well-chosen introductory pieces for initial exploration. The increased availability of non- directed resources on the web (information overload) has increased the need to maintain authoritative content/links.
Debowski (2003:3) is of the view that the process of information seeking is gradually increasing in sophistication as more services are placed online and the capacity of systems to provide extensive information increases. Arguments in the same vein are expressed by Rowley et al. (2001:30), who argue that although students make use of online resources, such as websites and email, it is information skills that are the real problem because they appear not to understand the nature of the services that they use, even while actively using these resources. Rowley and others (2001:30) have observed that while postgraduate students often demonstrate developed knowledge about specific sources relevant to their studies, in other respects they do not exhibit a profile of EIS’
(Electronic Information Systems’) use that differs much from undergraduates. Walton and Archer (2004:8) allege that web-searching skills are particularly problematic because
of the challenges that the web poses to academic values and traditional research practices.
Consequently, the technical skills of web searching are often taught separately from academic curricula or left entirely unaddressed. Leverenz (in Walton and Archer, 2004:8) is of the opinion that online sources challenge conventional academic disciplinary values.
He believes that the web turns academic conventions on their head because of the absence of traditional publishing gatekeepers and quality indicators, unclear or collaborative authorship, absence of dating information, and the transience and mutability of online texts in a medium that does not guarantee the ability to retrieve something.
Another challenge of the web is that like any ICT, its use and diffusion is highly dependent on the development of related infrastructures. Farivar (2004:16) asserts that Internet-based technology requires a foundation of computing and telecommunications infrastructure and skills; in other words, the Internet is not a stand-alone technology, it is dependent on other things (computers, telephone lines, data transmission cables, etc.) to function. The web is included in this group. Internet infrastructure is a barrier to student and staff’s information seeking behaviour. As Rius-Riu (n.d:3) states, lack of access to appropriate computer equipment can be an insurmountable obstacle for educators and students alike if the necessary infrastructure is not available or is unaffordable.
Commenting on the challenges brought about by the Internet, Nichols in Ronge (2007) says, “It’s a whole new critical world out there. I am all for everyone having a voice […]
I just don’t think everyone has earned the microphone. And that’s what the Internet has done. It has given everyone the microphone, saying ‘Get a load off your chest’…” Ronge (2007) argues that the information superhighway is also ‘the propaganda express’, because while there are sites that are luminous with well presented, meticulously researched information, there are also many glibly argued, expensively designed sites that provide false rhetoric.
So in a nutshell, with the increasing importance of the WWW, the ability to use various information sources autonomously becomes more and more important. At the same time,
an information user must be able to properly sift through and select and evaluate information that successfully meets their needs.